Liberation of Auschwitz Anniversary

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:27): Monday last week, 27 January 2020, marked 75 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. It is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is a time when we remember the six million Jewish people who were consigned to their deaths when anti-Semitism and discrimination morphed to become a state-sanctioned policy of genocide. We remember the millions of other people—the Roma, the Russians, the Slavic peoples, political prisoners, people living with a disability and many others—who were murdered.

To mark the 75^th anniversary, more than 200 survivors from Auschwitz gathered together at the site of the former concentration camp. Many of the survivors spoke of their experiences in quite harrowing terms. They stressed the importance of listening to the stories of survivors, while also warning us to be vigilant against the signs of rising anti-Semitism and hatred in the world today. For example, 11 months ago, New Zealand suffered through one of their darkest days, with 51 people, almost all of whom were Muslims, murdered in Christchurch because of their religion.

In the United States there have been multiple shootings at synagogues. On 12 June 2016, 49 people were murdered at the Orlando nightclub shooting in the worst hate crimes committed against LGBT people in the United States. In Europe we have seen the Russian government continue their persecution of LGBT people, strengthening discriminatory laws and incarcerating activists. In Egypt hundreds of people in same-sex relationships have been imprisoned since 2013.

Survivors of these concentration camps have therefore drawn the attention of the world to the strong parallels between these incidents, and many others, and the persecution faced by people in Germany and central Europe in the interwar years. A gay man, Mr Fredrich-Paul, was born in the old trading city of Luebeck in northern Germany. He spoke of his situation when he was arrested in 1937 by the SS, along with 230 other men in Luebeck, for being a homosexual.

Fredrich-Paul was incarcerated for 10 months initially. In 1938 he was re-arrested, humiliated and tortured before once again being released on the proviso that he was castrated. Facing no other option, he was forced to submit. In 1943 he was arrested again and kept in those camps until he was liberated. For the remainder of the war, he was imprisoned in Neuengamme concentration camp at Luebeck.

Rudolf Brazda’s story is equally tragic. He lived in Germany, the son of Czech migrants. He was 20 years old when Hitler rose to power, and the Nazi government immediately strengthened homophobic laws. On 8 August 1942, having gone to prison twice, he was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he was given the number 7952 and a pink triangle to wear. He witnessed extreme cruelties towards other gay detainees and was only able to survive due to a single kapo helping to hide him in the months before the camp was liberated. Mr Brazda died on 3 August 2011 at the age of 98, more than half a century after he was freed.

We will never hear the individual stories of the thousands of gay men who were killed at Auschwitz. It is estimated that somewhere between 5,000 and 15,000 of those murdered there were gay, but we will never know the true toll. What we do know is that between 1933 and 1945 an estimated 100,000 men were arrested in Germany under the infamous paragraph 175 law. They were targeted, ostensibly because they did not contribute to the desired growth of the Aryan population, and were accused of corrupting German values and culture.

Like the yellow Star of David that Jewish people were forced to wear on their uniforms, gay prisoners were forced to wear the pink triangle to identify their status as dangerous non-conformists to the Nazi ideology of Aryan purity.

We must never forget what can happen when human beings are singled out as belonging to an undesirable subclass, when they are ostracised and victimised and when they are set up as convenient scapegoats for government priorities. We must never forget what atrocities can be committed on human beings by their fellow humans when leaders and governments decide to target people based on their identify and rouse their community to violence and hatred. We know where that leads. We must never, ever forget.